Wanting to work on creating textures and visual interest in my pieces, I decided to draw a plant that I thought had a very interesting texture. It has almost a fabric-like texture and is very shimmery as if there's glitter on it. I also like the stripes within each leaf, which I thought would make the piece more interesting.
For my composition, I decided to surround the leaves with an irregular-shaped clump of dirt. I also planned to show the texture of the roots and rocks found in the dirt.
Next I drew out the shapes with graphite on dark gray paper. The graphite on darker paper reflects the light that hits it, and I used this quality of graphite later in the piece.
I started shading the stem and each leaf by filling in the darkest parts first with the black charcoal, and blending it as necessary with a blending stump to smooth it out. Then I repeated this with the white charcoal, working on the lightest bits first and working towards the gray of the paper, blending as necessary. The two back leaves were a bit smoother than the three in the front, so I blended those more. I dotted the white charcoal along bits of the black charcoal and vice versa to achieve the texture of the leaves.
I repeated this process with the rest of the leaves, and then I began work on the dirt. I drew in the lightest lines first, shaded some of the lighter rocks, and then switched to the black charcoal pencil to work on the darkest parts. I also darkened and thickened the edges of the dirt to add some depth to it.
Finally, I went over the leaves with dotted lines of graphite so that when it reflects the light at certain angles, it would imitate the shimmering effect of the leaves.
Finished piece straight on, as well as tilted to reflect the light
I had noticed the reflective qualities of graphite before, so I'm glad to have found a way to use it creatively to add to the visual interest of my piece!